Apparently this was/is an ‘online music creation community and user-generated record label founded in 2007 by hip-hop star Ludacris’, per Wikipedia. However there doesn’t seem to be much covereage of the site since it’s launch in 2008.

I doubt anybody will be able to snag this though for 2 reasons. Firstly, since there is a period after you ‘win’ the auction where the original owner still has a chance to renew the domain, there is a big chance this won’t be got by anybody. Secondly, I’ll bet there are plenty of copyright/trademark issues since it was an actual website/company. But…you never know!

Still though, always interesting to see good domains like this expire because someone ignored the $10 renewal notice (or isn’t getting them.)

For a while now I have been looking for a good bookmarking service. I had been using the regular FireFox bookmarks but those can get very disorganized very quickly. So I began my search for a new service.

I had used Delicious in the past, but after all the hoopla about new ownership and not knowing what will happen to that company, I’m hesitant to start using it now. After all, with bookmarking especially, you want to choose a service that will actually be around for a while.

I tried a few other free services and had the same issue with almost every one: too complicated! I just want to easily add bookmarks with tags and be able to search them. That’s it.

So I finally decided to try Pinboard because it offers a 3 day money back guarantee. When I signed up for Pinboard, the cost for registering was a one-time fee of $9.55. The cost increases by $1 for every 1000 users that sign up.

After using it for only 3 days, I’m really liking it. I would say the main reason is because it is simple and just does what is supposed to do very all. I got the FireFox extension and it’s very easy to quickly add bookmarks with various tags. You can then search your bookmarks or tags and that goes really quickly.

Anyway, what’s interesting is that Pinboard is a one man operation. If you read his blog you can tell he is very passionate about delivering a great product and he is always adding new features. You can read about how it all started here.

Bottom line is if you found this post and are considering signing up, go for it. It’s a one-time fee and a great service that you will be using for a long time.

1) Your website does not need to be making money and that shouldn’t be the focus

Most experienced buyers are looking for value, not current revenue. They are looking for a website with potential; a good base to start from to expand their own vision. If you have a website that has good design or a good concept or a good script or a good name, buyers will imagine the potential and pay accordingly. Earning potential (which is different to every person) is much more important to most buyers than whether the site is currently earning $23/month from adsense or not.

Obviously it matters, it’s just not the only factor as amateur buyers tend to believe.

2) Highlight the strengths

When describing your website, put emphasis in the areas where it is strong even it is something you personally don’t value that much. For example, some people care more about Pagerank, others care about domain age; some care more about direct traffic or search engine traffic etc. Certain buyers value certain things and make decisions based on those, so make sure to highlight the strengths.

3) Don’t be a salesman

Don’t use words like “Wow” or “Great deal” or “I could have turned this into a multi-billion dollar business but I have too many other more important projects on my plate so it’s your lucky day”. This is by far the biggest indicator that your site is worthless.

In general, people like to discover the value of something themselves. Being told something is great only makes it less great.

4) Do some research to see what your website is worth

A great way to get some ballpark numbers, is to search already ended auctions on Flippa that are similar to your website. This should give you a good idea as to what people are willing to pay. There are many other factors that determine the worth of a website, but ultimately the number will be subjective and should reflect what you are comfortable selling it for.

On a related note, don’t ‘explain’ why your website is worth what you’re asking. People will bid what they think it’s worth, not what you tell them to think it’s worth.

5) Set a 7-14 day auction time maximum

People like to get hyped about things. They find a website they want to buy and have all kinds of ideas about what they are going to do with it and how they are going to change the world….And then they see you listed it as a 30 day auction…2 weeks later the excitement has died down and they are no longer interested. You just a bidder.

You might be thinking that 30 days gets you more exposure, but in that case why not list it for 60 days? People will always wait till the last minute to bid anyway, and most buyers I talked to check Flippa at least a few times a week.

6) Post as much proof/data as possible

This one is pretty simple but sometimes I see sites that I’d otherwise be interested in that don’t have this information posted. Verified Google Analytics is best for traffic but any stats screenshots will do. Also if you are claiming revenue, expenses etc try to find some screenshots to back it up. The more (relevant) proof you post the more legitimate it makes you look.

7) Be responsive to potential buyers’ questions

So you have a great website to sell, a good description, all your stats posted and you got the buyer’s interest. Now don’t drop the ball by not responding or taking too long to respond to questions. It shows you are not taking the sale seriously.

I think it is generally best to answer questions within 24 hours, preferably sooner. But not too soon as that will make you look desperate.

I’ve been doing some research based on a new lead, and I thought it would be interesting to show what kind of domain name $100,000 could get you over the years (or more accurately, which domains sold for that amount). This is only .com’s so as not to complicate things too much.

2004

Truck.com

eCruise.com

2005

Lunch.com

Lofts.com

EQ.com

Blogster.com

2006

Dora.com

HB.com

MovieRentals.com

FunnyAds.com

2007

Debit.com

Bulk.com

15.com

VN.com

Track.com

2008

Cleaning.com

LT.com

MeetPeople.com

Jake.com

2009

Pipi.com

LiveStream.com

OnlineEducation.com

Keyboard.com

2010

Dirt.com

Prize.com

CashUSA.com

027.com

2011

Soulmate.com

Ocean.com

235.com

I will try to get more names for 03 and 04. This is a VERY limited sample, just thought it would be cool to glance over!

I got this advertisement yesterday (the day .XXX registrations opened to the public) in an email from GoDaddy. I’m aware that many schools and companies are spending insane amounts of money registering .XXX names “defensively”. I wonder how much of this the ICM knew in advance, or if it’s all just a big bonus for them. Either way, seems a bit low to use it as a selling point even if they know that’s why most (?) people are registering them.

As a side note, if you have a company called ‘acme cleaners’ that isn’t famous like Google or Microsoft, who exactly is going to buy acmecleaners.xxx and what exactly will they do with it? I think it applies only to really major brands & even then it is an easy lawsuit to get the website taken down (granted, for them, it’s easier to register the domain than have to even worry about filing a lawsuit). I don’t see how this is necessary or worth it for most brands/companies.

Since the popularity of search engines has gotten bigger and bigger, it has long been thought that this would devalue domain names since people would mainly use search to get to websites – both discovering new websites and accessing known ones. Clearly, that hasn’t been the case so far. However I would like to take it one step further. I think that now more than ever – with all the ‘noise’ – people are specifically typing in domain names more and more. By noise I mean all the ads and redirects and all the distractions. So if you end up using search you might get lost along the way to an ad, a redirect, an inaccurate link, a different website or a pop-up video or just another website that wasn’t your intended destination.

When the web was smaller, people welcomed distraction as we were always interested in new things. However the web has gotten so big now that I think many people want less noise. And the best way to get to where you want to go without noise is by typing in the domain name directly (and with URL auto-fill in most new browsers, you rarely have to type in the full name anyway).

Michael Berkens revealed on his blog today that he brokered the sale of the domain meet.me for 450k through his company MostWantedDomains on behalf of himself, Rick Schwartz & Ammar Kubba who all owned the domain together.

This is really big news because it is the largest known sale price for any .Me domain. The buyer is a company that also owns the domain meetme.com.

Many people are using this as an argument for the new domain extensions. I don’t think this proves anything as it is an exceptional name that works really well with the .Me extension. Also it’s only one sale. Either way exciting to see.